True or False: “We Are All Responsible” by Cameron Salisbury

It’s happened again. Another well meaning soul insisting that EveryOne is to blame for the mess that engulfs the U.S. politically, militarily and economically because in our political system, the country gets what it votes for. Therefore, ‘we are all responsible.’

Some may get their kicks from an existential guilt trip, but please count me out.

First, we almost never get what we think we voted for. Just a few examples: Remember George W. saying he’d be a ‘uniter, not a divider’? Before the vote he also said yes to more social programs, lower taxes and a balanced budget. Franklin Roosevelt said he’d keep the U.S. out of foreign wars and Richard Nixon said he’d end the war in Viet Nam.

Before election day, voters are bombarded with ads, negative and positive, and promises, some vague, some not. Complicating the process is the media which prefers sound bites to substance. Voters negotiate the mine field and cast their ballots for the person who does the best job of convincing them that he or she will fulfill their fantasy.

Every few years we go to the polls and pin our hopes on a Rorschach ink blot shaped like a person.

Don’t blame me for this.

Tens of millions of us had a lot to say, and we said it over and over, both in print and in phone calls to Congress, before our representatives opted to ignore our furious dissension and approved the Wall Street bailout. That act alone has been regarded by some as prima fascia evidence that American citizens are voiceless shadows in a mythical democracy.

Personally, I don’t think I contributed to the problem.

We the people voted in record numbers for someone different, a self-proclaimed agent of change, and Barack Obama became president. Who is responsible for the disappointment that he has been to many? We elected him to change the way Washington behaves and he showed every indication that he believed he could. I’m not sure that he is responsible, either.

And I’m certainly not.

In the name of the U.S., atrocities have been and are being committed in Iraq and Afghanistan by the military and by an increasing number of heavily armed delinquents known as contractors who are accountable to no one. Congress has attempted to reign in the cowboys with what appears to be only marginal success.

The atrocities are both passive, as when sanctions result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, and active, as when Iraqi wedding parties are incinerated by drones. Obama is unable – though, I’m convinced, not unwilling – to reduce the out-of-control military and its over-the-top budget. The armed forces are a nation unto themselves and they usurp nearly 50 cents of every one of our tax dollars.

Should you and I shoulder the blame? If you believe that you are morally responsible, aren’t you are morally obligated to stop paying taxes? Let’s see a show of hands for everyone willing to do this.

We have a Supreme Court that says it’s just fine for corporations anywhere in the world to buy a U.S. election. We have lobbying groups that keep us embroiled in Middle East politics, that fight health care reform tooth and nail, that keep the financial sector fat and happy while tens of thousands lose their jobs and line up at food banks. We have a cadre of powerful, unelected advisors built into the system, people like Karl Rove, Rahm Emanuel and all of K Street.

I didn’t cause any of this. Did you?

Many people have responded to the dysfunction in Washington by joining groups like the Tea Party and openly oppose the influential, often appointed, government personnel that citizens have been stuck with. Since most such groups are ignored by the thumb-sucking media, their influence spreads wirelessly. At least for now. Corporations are doing their level best to wrangle control of communication space, too.

OK. ‘Fess up, you who are accountable. Is this your fault? If yes, then fix it.

The ‘We’re all responsible’ group never fails to bring up Nazi Germany.

To which I reply: What is your point?

Stories still surface, over 60 years later, of German civilians with the power to assist the persecuted who did just that. There is no way of knowing how many sympathizers had no power to intervene. But we do know that Germany in the latter 1930s and 1940s was run by thugs who had a heavily armed state at their disposal. Dissent became a capital offense. During the war, the allies bombed much of Germany into rubble, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. The German population paid dearly for the actions of their leaders.

Were they all responsible?

Although most United States citizens were far distant from the corporate-lobbyist coup, we are held accountable for Washington’s actions. To the 9/11 terrorists, the fact that an overwhelming majority of Americans were in no way responsible for U.S. policy in the Middle East was strictly a footnote. They seemed to have entirely missed the fine print that explained the distinction between wealthy lobbying groups that promote war in the Middle East and the majority who don’t want it. Or maybe the murderously alienated just don’t care.

Similarly, Amanda Knox is in jail in Italy, one of the most unlikely convicts in history, most probably in retaliation for homicidal actions committed in Italy by an unrepentant American military.

The fact that we will be held to account for actions committed by others is incentive enough to take action. But we can’t do it by letting the perps off the hook and claiming responsibility ourselves.

What should we do? Here are some ideas.

Washington, D.C., should be closed down and its functions decentralized. All legislators should be required to stay in the districts that elected them and use modern communications to interface with others. This would remind the elected on a daily basis that their neighbors hired them. It would have the added benefit of making the lives of lobbyists significantly more difficult. Tell Michael Moore to investigate the possibility.

Blame the right people. Call a war criminal a war criminal and insist on prosecution or extradition for one and all. Pretend like the Nuremberg trials really mattered. Support Cindy Sheehan.

Recognize the class warfare happening in America right now and insist that the casualties be treated like those in any other war, with limitless subsidies for those in the trenches: the unemployed, the undereducated, the uninsured, the debt vassals, the single parents.

Join protests against the military and the excesses of the police state, like brutality and tasers, while we still can.

And most of all: Stop claiming responsibility for criminal acts over which we had no control and put the blame where it belongs. Stop giving the perps a free ride on our conscience. They should be driven out of town and into jail by our outrage, not coddled by our narcissism.

We should not be willing to shoulder blame for criminal activity committed, domestically and abroad, without our consent. The fact that we live in the U.S. is not evidence of guilt.